Jess

“And she told you something about yourself you really ought to know: that you're beautiful, and worth loving.”
― Tamora Pierce, The Will of the Empress

“I was a glaring blot on the perfection. But I didn't care: I didn't feel I owed him beauty.”
― Naomi Novik, Uprooted

“We write in response to what we read and learn; and in the end we write out of our deepest selves.”
― Andrea Barrett

“All my life,” she said, “I have been told ‘go’ and ‘come.’ I am told how I will live, and I am told how I must die. I must be a man’s servant and a mare for his pleasure, or I must hide myself behind walls and surrender my flesh to a cold, silent god. I would walk into the jaws of hell itself, if it were a path of my own choosing. I would rather die tomorrow in the forest than live a hundred years of the life appointed me. Please. Please let me help you.”
― Katherine Arden, The Bear and the Nightingale